Fusing Human Resources and the Holy Scripture

April 24, 2015

By

Robertson School of Government (RSG) professor Dr. Gary Roberts says his most recent book is a labor of love. His love of human resources and Scripture fused as he wrote his latest book about these topics. He has many years of experience as an HR professional, having earned a doctorate in the subject and having spent some time as a senior research analyst designing performance appraisal systems.

In 2003 when the Lord led him to Regent University to be a professor, that experience met face-to-face with a new concept, integrating faith in the workplace.

“I was learning as much as the students,” said Roberts. “I would be reading about faith integration, your faith at work, Mike Zigarelli’s reading and others.”

That reading led Roberts to begin putting together short essays about faith integration, looking at Scripture and seeing what it has to say about a business topic.

“And so I had all of this material,” said Roberts. “Sometimes it’s easier to write out a book with a framework, but what I had to do was kind of piece together all of these kind of components.”

“Christian Scripture and Human Resource Management: Building a Path to Servant Leadership through Faith” is one of four books Roberts has authored or co-authored. He shared some of his latest book’s themes and stressed the importance of appreciating human resources Tuesday, interacting with guests in Robertson Hall.

“I spent a lot of time illustrating what servant leadership is, the character, the behavior attributes, and then the principles that define servant leadership in the HR world,” said Roberts. “The book also illustrates the value of servant leadership empirically, the research that says if you’re a servant leader, it has beneficial outcomes on your attitudes, behavior and performance.”